


each pond with its blazing lillies

by Tieleen



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Remix, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper coughs and sits up, raises an absent hand to brush at her cheek where she may well now have a paragraph of legalese stamped backwards in transferred ink. "Morning, JARVIS," she says. "I'm sorry, my alarm usually sounds a little different."</p>
            </blockquote>





	each pond with its blazing lillies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Prolonging of Desire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/878293) by [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls). 
  * Inspired by [The Tender Solemn Dawn-Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/918955) by [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls). 



> Dear PhoenixFalls, originally this was going to be a remix of only one of your stories, "The Tender Solemn Dawn-Time"; it was going to be Tony/Rhodey, a series of mornings over the years. It refused to cooperate, though, until I decided to bring in a second story, "The Prolonging of Desire". So now it's a combo remix, and I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Title from "Morning Poem" by Mary Oliver. Because it's Tony, this story has an imaginary twin about a series of evenings, with a title from "The Sceiences Sing a Lullaby", a lovely poem by Albert Goldbarth. That imaginary story is probably the better one of the two, but what can you do.

When Pepper wakes up, papers sleep-warm against her cheek and eyes wide open in shock, the first thing to filter through is that her back is killing her. Tony's furniture is always comfortable – Pepper makes sure to check it every time, before approving a decorator's choice and after going through the formal ritual of trying to get Tony on site to check them for himself – but apparently they aren't comfortable enough for the 'accidentally fall asleep curled up sideways in an outfit that was never meant for sleeping and your head on a pile of legal documents' position. Later, when she's more awake, Pepper will make a mental note to be more thorough next time. Tony generally needs furniture that can stand up to all tests and conditions.

"Good morning, Miss Potts," JARVIS says. Pepper squeaks.

JARVIS isn't a real person, and so he doesn't sigh. Instead, he allows a moment to lapse, long enough for Pepper to realize sudden voices at the edge of sleep are probably why she's awake with her heart hammering in the first place. Then he says, "I apologize for startling you, Miss Potts. I didn't expect you to be alarmed." For a non-real person who's programmed to sound bland and polite at all times, his voice is remarkably full of bland and polite reproach.

Pepper coughs and sits up, raises an absent hand to brush at her cheek where she may well now have a paragraph of legalese stamped backwards in transferred ink. "Morning, JARVIS," she says. "I'm sorry, my alarm usually sounds a little different. Uh, what time is it?"

"It's quite all right, Miss Potts," JARVIS says. "It's nine thirty in the morning, on Saturday, the twenty-third of March. You and Colonel Rhodes have been asleep since approximately four thirty this morning. Based on your usual arrival time on weekend days, I believed you'd prefer not to be woken up any later into the morning."

Pepper blinks and refocuses. When she turns her head, Rhodey is indeed less than five feet away, sprawled in Tony's huge armchair – Pepper barely managed to wrestle this year's decorator away from installing a fireplace to match, a perfect fit for a California mansion – head fallen to the side in a way that promises he'll feel this much more than Pepper herself, legal documents both in his lap and in scattered piles by his feet. His mouth is open. From this angle he looks almost puzzled, like sleep is one more arrangement to get through.

He needs a shave, which is an unusual look for Rhodey, and he looks a little loose, just like someone who's fallen asleep in the middle of the night after hours of work that may well come to nothing in two days. His eyelashes are faint shadows in the daylight, and his shirt (not uniform, and much more suitable for sleep than Pepper's) is old and worn, lying soft against the lines of his body in its half-awkward angle.

This isn't the first time Pepper's spent hours with Rhodey, sometimes well into the night, working on things other people may all but ignore later. The thing is, Stark Industries has two ways of settling military contracts; there's the way in which people from appropriate departments get together and hammer out details, and argue out the smallest technicalities, and discuss timelines and budgets and conditions. And there's the way in which Tony slaps Rhodey's shoulder and says, "Whatever, let's do this, it'll be fine." In the rare places where those two ways intersect, Rhodey and Pepper are the ones who try to build the framework the experts can work from and Tony can be brow-beaten into acknowledging and Obadiah Stane will deem good enough to be allowed to stand instead of arranging for its complete redoing.

All that said, though -- through a coincidence of timing and placement -- this is the first time Pepper has woken up with Rhodey in the middle of Tony's living room, bright light washing over the deep colors she's chosen this time around (white, she thinks, maybe whites next year) and Rhodey's arm half-dangling to the side, his elbow just barely maintaining its purchase on the arm rest.

"Rhodey," she says. He doesn't stir. Maybe people with saner jobs are used to fuller nights than this.

Pepper clears her throat again. She needs water, or maybe coffee. "Rhodey," she says again, leaning over to vaguely pat at his knee.

His mouth closes. The fingers of his other hand, the one resting open over the papers in his lap, give a tiny twitch. Other than that there's no change. Pepper huffs silent amusement and shifts her weight, better balance and more leverage, and tries a firmer prod. "Rhodey!"

Pepper's known James Rhodes for some years now, and they've found enough common ground besides trying to sometimes survive Tony Stark that she'd confidently say they like each other. It's still unexpected when he smiles, though, just as his eyes are opening to see her bent towards him, quiet and warm and slow. Pepper forgets to take her hand back for a moment, her mouth opening around a word she's not sure of. Maybe she should have woken up more herself first.

His voice is raspy on, "Hey – we fell asleep," rough in a way that makes Pepper half-wince in sympathy and makes her suddenly aware of her fingers on his knee at the same time. She draws back, returning his smile, and there's a silent beat of them just smiling with varying degrees of bleariness before Rhodey tries to move his head.

"Oh, fuck," he says. "Did an elephant sleep on my head?" 

Pepper wrinkles her nose, vaguely guilty. "It's a very comfortable chair if you're only in it for a few hours."

"Believe me," he says, rubbing his neck, "this isn't the worst thing Tony's furniture's ever done to me. Remind me to tell you someday about the time he decided to redesign everything in his living room so it would be more twentieth century-appropriate."

Pepper only met Tony when he was thirty six. Sometimes she forgets what a lucky break that was.

"Come on," she says, standing up and stretching. "We should probably start breakfast before Dummy tries to be helpful. You know, I'm pretty sure we still have the entire section on required testing to get through."

"I'll tell you what," Rhodey says, standing up much more slowly. "This time, the first person who suggests just changing everything we wrote down gets to play target in the demonstration. I don't care if it isn't Tony."

"I wouldn't dream of stopping you, Colonel," Pepper says, turning to lead the way to the kitchen. "As you know, cooperating with the military liaison is at the top of SI's priority list."

"Maybe if it's Tony we can just kill him ourselves," Rhodey says, contemplative.

If they haven't done it so far, it's unlikely to happen at all. Still, it's good to keep your options open. "Where is Tony, anyway?" she asks. "JARVIS, is he still asleep?"

"Mister Stark is still in his workshop," JARVIS says. "I believe he's last slept thirty five hours ago."

"Breakfast in the workshop it is, then," Pepper says. "Grab the papers, would you, Rhodey? I'll see if there's anything edible in the fridge. I bet we can legalese him into going off to bed in fifteen minutes or less."

"No bet," Rhodey says. "Let's start on subsection three." Rhodey's always been a little vicious. Pepper's pretty fond of that fact.

***

Pepper is already long awake and ready for the day when Tony wakes up, negotiating with the coffeemaker down in the kitchen over the strength of the coffee and asking JARVIS to bully Tony out of bed.

Pepper is asleep in a guest room after a fundraiser followed by a work meeting. When he bursts through the door two hours later she heaves a sigh that turns into a yawn and murmurs, "Really, Tony, boundaries," and her face is soft with sleep and guarded affection but her voice leaves no room for argument. He pretends not to hear, but remembers.

Pepper is asleep in his living room when he comes up from the workshop, chased away by the frustration of the cast on his arm and the still-strange sensation in his chest. Her hair is loose against the pale upholstery. She looks comfortable.

Pepper is awake at an unlikely hour half the city away, trying to deal with an entire company she's running in everything but name while Tony tries to deal with the fact that unlikely escapes can turn out not to be escapes at all. He doesn't answer the phone.

Pepper is rolling towards him, her arm sliding around his waist and her mouth pressed against his throat. He can feel her breathe in, and he buries his face in her hair and breathes in as well, clenching fists into her tank top and wondering at his dumb luck.

Pepper is looking at him with amusement as he flails and kicks his way into water-drenched awareness. She says, "You said I should definitely get you to this meeting with Fury at all costs."

Pepper is stretching, back bent and arms against the headrest. Her shirt rides up enough that he can see the flash of red-orange chase across her abdomen. It's beautiful.

***

"The thing is," Rhodey says, "that bed you had before? Already big enough for about five people. This one's even bigger. No other living human would manage to take up 90% of it."

Tony hums contentedly. "I strive to be extraordinary."

"Pepper's about to fall off the side."

A minute movement, the skin-to-skin symbol of a shrug. "You seem fine."

"You're lying on top of me," Rhodey says. "Other than that, yeah, pretty much okay."

"There you go, then," he says. At the periphery of his vision Rhodey sees Tony's arm shift, stretch to rest on Pepper's shoulder. She murmurs and curls closer towards them, further away from the edge of the bed.

The weight shift involved in this maneuver in no way improves Rhodey's situation. He imagines he can feel his kidneys falling asleep.

Pepper makes another rumbly, incoherent noise. Rhodey can't see Tony's smile where it's pressed into his shoulder, but he can imagine it, clear as day.

The simple fact is that in a minute or two Tony will get tired of waking up slowly, and tired of getting his own way, and he'll roll off of Rhodey and wander off to the kitchen for coffee, and then further off on his ongoing quest to find a new hobby that isn't building a small army made of suits and isn't dying slowly and isn't thinking up thirty new ways to improve one tower that Pepper would really like to finish building this decade, for the second time. He'll probably do it before the lack of circulation does any permanent damage to Rhodey's internal organs. He'll come back, though; this is one fact about Tony, one fundamental basic fact, and Rhodey's sometimes doubted it in all the years they've known each other, but never for long.

Pepper shifts again, one more step closer to waking up. Rhodey shifts too, slides the fingers of one hand between her fingers, the back of her hand smooth and warm against his palm, slides his other hand up Tony's back, stopping where he always does, as though he can feel the beat under his fingers: unhindered and unthreatened and deceptively safe. Tony shifts last, a shadow of their movements or a reaction to Rhodey's touch, an inevitable break in this small moment of stillness. "So I ran the numbers," he says. Rhodey can feel warm breath through cloth at his shoulder, the rumble of Tony's voice against his palm. "If I change the back plating on War Machine to that new design I showed you, it looks like your reach could –"

The first sign is Pepper's hand curling inside his hand, her fingers tightening around his. She makes another sleepy sound and kicks a leg out, her ankle or her calf landing on top of Tony's on top of Rhodey's, and doesn't bother to open her eyes when she mumbles, "Anyone in this bed who wasn't talking to shareholders in ridiculous time zones until ungodly hours can either go away or shut the hell up."

There's another gust of breath against him, Tony's quiet snicker, and Rhodey brings her hand and his own up to press a kiss into her palm. 

It's nice and warm here, and her skin is sweet-smelling and well-known against his lips. Maybe he'll stay here for a while and let Tony start the coffee downstairs. On the other hand, he'd really like to know more about those numbers.

He doesn't realize he's smoothing his hand up and down Tony's back, slow and drowsy, until Tony shifts again. Rhodey slows more, drags his fingers up into the hair at his nape, preparing to move his hand and let him loose, but Tony only settles again, stretches a hand to Pepper's waist to drag her closer to them, ignores her half-hearted grumble even as she tucks her head into his arm and her body into both their sides, a precarious, unlikely squeeze of three bodies together balancing each other in place.

"Shutting up," Tony says, "we can do that."

Rhodey grins and closes his eyes again. Maybe sleeping for a bit longer isn't such a bad idea.


End file.
